The Tree Cutters
Roadside tress falling to the bottom of the sea,
orange moonmen with profiles of edges and plastic
buzz like angry bees, so I crouch in
the middle of the earth, lost to green
under the forest, under moss, behind roots
but having small stones thrown into my eyes
am unable to look upwards
standing ashamed in my fern grave as
trucks rumble past, even a massacre of pigs
would leave them unconcerned, runed,
coloured with the names of strange places,
edges of towns alongside sand and gravel
and the radio in my car lights green,
fighting to regain sanity, helpless,
all meaning filtering down to a pulse,
reason is sick this morning, a lost voice.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Related quotes
Through the Shutter
The dull transfiguration's of this hapless old room.
The rusted edges,
orange-brown autumn leaves
on Yosemite's endless trees.
And I'm sure,
you can feel my sigh
With my head tilted upwards,
As I watch, the green paint peeling
and small flakes falling,
it's color becomes less overwhelming.
The rooms passage,
less open than before
still open,
none the less
leads to nowhere
for ages hence
and I sit here waiting,
patiently staying
watching the beautiful scene outside of the window before me.
and my eyes do seem
to be wondering what lies beyond this stale green.
but they know,
they have to surpass,
the endless darkness beside this room
for nothing here has changed,
and they know nothing would.
poem by Joseph Ostapiuk
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a Childrens game?
I see a boy making roads
in the red-brown sand,
where his blue plastic Ranchero pickup
drives up and down
past a mud pond.
There’s a green plastic
roofless Mercedes,
that’s parked in the shade
next to a homestead
of tomato planks.
Small branches stand like popular trees
pressed in a row
in a rectangle,
where a red plastic Massi Furgeson tractor
draws furrows in a line of dust.
When I pass that place years later
a farmer drives around his fields
with his white Toyota pickup,
where popular trees
are rowed in next to the road
and green John Deere tractors
are ploughing
and I see a beautiful blonde woman
with a silver Mercedes SLK
cutting past their big dam
and the road turns away
and I wonder how the house looks
where they live
of which the roof
just edges pass the hillock.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Natural Green
Who coloured the green trees?
Who coloured the green grass?
Who coloured the green hills?
How about my green spider plant? ?
Green, Green, you are so glorious green...
An abundance of beautiful green, not coloured, but just natural and kind.
Makes me wonder how your creation of green came to life....
A ride on a helicopter over the huge Rain Forest and see nothing, but acres & acres of simply gorgeous green!
Green, Green, you are so glorious green...
An abundance of beautiful green, not coloured, but just natural and kind.
Makes me wonder how your creation of green came to life...
GREEN, I admire and respect the vitality you bring in the air that I breathe...
poem by Premila Patel
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In The Middle
IN THE MIDDLE
In the middle of the unending darkness that stretches on beyond forever
In the middle of the vast nowhere whose name has no shadow and no space
In the middle of all the generations whose anonymous past will be complemented by their overextended futures,
In the middle of the mass of nameless mankind featureless
In the middle of all that is and ever has been
In the middle of what was and will be always forever not
In the middle
In one small moment whose end is unpredictable
While the light still shines on the green green world
And the love and joy in the faces and hearts we care for still breathe
In the middle of the moment before consciousness is lost forever
Somewhere nowhere who knows where how
In the middle of all we are and will never be now
In the now of this life
I write these lines for all of us
Passing dreams
Beautiful great souls
True human beings
Better than me and you
And only me and you
For all of us
In the middle
Before the lights go out
And the endless darkness
Is silence and breathlessness
And nothing whatever real
We can feel or be.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Daffodils
Un vert soldat returns from war,
in green vast spreads and daffodils,
with bees to buzz above the gore,
he bleeds in haze from deathly bore,
dropping red drops on weeds and flor',
euphoric feed this ground of kills,
Un vert soldat returns from war,
in green vast spreads and daffodils,
O maker of the bees and flow'rs,
this is the field he run when small,
with birds on trees singing to stars,
the buzzing bees don't know of wars,
amid the souls that take this course,
utopian was his standing tall,
O maker of the bees and flow'rs,
this is the field he run when small.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad (1925)
Out here in the exact middle of the day,
This strange, gawky house has the expression
Of someone being stared at, someone holding
His breath underwater, hushed and expectant;
This house is ashamed of itself, ashamed
Of its fantastic mansard rooftop
And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed
of its shoulders and large, awkward hands.
But the man behind the easel is relentless.
He is as brutal as sunlight, and believes
The house must have done something horrible
To the people who once lived here
Because now it is so desperately empty,
It must have done something to the sky
Because the sky, too, is utterly vacant
And devoid of meaning. There are no
Trees or shrubs anywhere--the house
Must have done something against the earth.
All that is present is a single pair of tracks
Straightening into the distance. No trains pass.
Now the stranger returns to this place daily
Until the house begins to suspect
That the man, too, is desolate, desolate
And even ashamed. Soon the house starts
To stare frankly at the man. And somehow
The empty white canvas slowly takes on
The expression of someone who is unnerved,
Someone holding his breath underwater.
And then one day the man simply disappears.
He is a last afternoon shadow moving
Across the tracks, making its way
Through the vast, darkening fields.
This man will paint other abandoned mansions,
And faded cafeteria windows, and poorly lettered
Storefronts on the edges of small towns.
Always they will have this same expression,
The utterly naked look of someone
Being stared at, someone American and gawky.
Someone who is about to be left alone
Again, and can no longer stand it.
poem by Edward Hirsch
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Testify
Come a little closer it's a feeling that I can't deny
I was weak, but I never thought I'd speak about the darker side
Is that a ten? I could repent on the side of the road
But, I kept on going yeah I headed for another load
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
I was laid upon the grave by a preacher's hand I cannot lie
And, I forsake many vows I made to be with you tonight
Could you be the salvation cause I never felt like this before
And, could you lend me your hand because I'm falling back on the floor
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
On a road outside of nowhere, in the middle of the night
Well I guess I hit rock bottom and the dawn was not in sight
And a Tempest made of fire, onset the sky aglow
And a sweet young thing called out my name
And this is how it goes, she says...
Choir:
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
Meatloaf: And I got down on my knees
Choir :"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
Meatloaf (over the top of the choirs last two repititions):
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Meatloaf & Choir:
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Meatloaf:
Every cut that heals reveals a scar that you can never hope to hide
All the pain that you restrain keeps building up deep inside
If you think you're above it then it's you my friend that I implore
You've got to talk before you run
See the night before the dawn
Before you pull yourself off the floor
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
Choir Singer: Up from the ground yeah, I testify
Meatloaf & Choir:
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
song performed by by Meat Loaf
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Forest of the Lost
She wanders curiously through
The Forest of the Lost
Past the other creatures of pity
The Lost creatures
She looks and listens
Sees and hears
Nothing and everything
Space and form
Fog rolls in
Growing thicker
It trys to devour her
Like it so easily devours
The other Lost creatures
But her strange aroura
Pitch black and brighter than the sun
Protects her with ease
She does not belong
To the Forest of the Lost
The Forest of the Lost
Belongs to her
She is not Lost
Lost is her
She is magical
Mysterious
Dark and light
Blended together
The Forest of the Lost
Has met its maker
The Lost creatures
Take shape
In the fog
And thank her
And the Girl of the Lost
Guides the creatures back
To the Land of the Found
poem by Shannon Hughes
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In Excelsis
It is half winter, half spring,
and Barbara and I are standing
confronting the ocean.
Its mouth is open very wide,
and it has dug up its green,
throwing it, throwing it at the shore.
You say it is angry.
I say it is like a kicked Madonna.
Its womb collapses, drunk with its fever.
We breathe in its fury.
I, the inlander,
am here with you for just a small space.
I am almost afraid,
so long gone from the sea.
I have seen her smooth as a cheek.
I have seen her easy,
doing her business,
lapping in.
I have seen her rolling her hoops of blue.
I have seen her tear the land off.
I have seen her drown me twice,
and yet not take me.
You tell me that as the green drains backward
it covers Britain,
but have you never stood on that shore
and seen it cover you?
We have come to worship,
the tongues of the surf are prayers,
and we vow,
the unspeakable vow.
Both silently.
Both differently.
I wish to enter her like a dream,
leaving my roots here on the beach
like a pan of knives.
And my past to unravel, with its knots and snarls,
and walk into ocean,
letting it explode over me
and outward, where I would drink the moon
and my clothes would slip away,
and I would sink into the great mother arms
I never had,
except here where the abyss
throws itself on the sand
blow by blow,
over and over,
and we stand on the shore
loving its pulse
as it swallows the stars,
and has since it all began
and will continue into oblivion,
past our knowing
and the wild toppling green that enters us today,
for a small time
in half winter, half spring.
poem by Anne Sexton
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The Green Roads
The green roads that end in the forest
Are strewn with white goose feathers this June,
Life marks left behind by someone gone to the forest
To show his track. But he has never come back.
Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest.
Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers.
An old man along the green road to the forest
Strays from one, from another a child alone.
In the thicket bordering the forest,
All day long a thrush twiddles his song.
It is old, but the trees are young in the forest,
All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep.
That oak saw the ages pass in the forest:
They were a host, but their memories are lost,
For the tree is dead: all things forget the forest
Excepting perhaps me, when now I see
The old man, the child, the goose feathers at the edge of the forest,
And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song.
poem by Edward Thomas
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Not Religious....Sorry......
I love trying to write
I love my poetic friends
I love my children
My pet guinea-pigs, Keith and Dandelion
Green tea
And any coloured vegetable (cause i have too)
My man
My new flowery wellies
The bees that scare me to run
Saturdays throng
Sundays silence
What i do not love is being lectured continually about religion
I loved god and lost my sister
Thats (my truth) and Im sorry
We are all cut from a different cloth (and mine frayed)
poem by Karen Sinclair
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The Map
Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?
The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.
Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,
or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
-the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger
like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods.
Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,
lending the land their waves' own conformation:
and Norway's hare runs south in agitation,
profiles investigate the sea, where land is.
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
-What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.
poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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Mangees, Mangees, Mangees...
A new order is ours,
A new birth to the old
And we have ceremony.
A garden with no green,
White flowers grow on a bed of
Yellow sunlight.
The cliched regiment of red and white stripes
Have lost any meaning - black and blue drift
Into the past.
The long lost past.
Everything's gone green.
Growth, loving laughter with no emotion.
Carefree happiness lost in decaying childhood
While living childhood has tears
Brimming on every eye.
Buttercups flow everywhere -
Drifting in memories,
Floating on ponds,
Singing around my head.
Sunlight illuminates even the eve
linger by my side today.
Tomorrow become a forest
Put the world in a teacup
- it wouldn't notice.
But we'll change seats forever
And the dishes will always be clean
Tea for two
I am one
Are you -
happy?
(7 July 1982)
poem by Jeff Hobbs
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Ode To The Green Grass Of Summer
green green grass
spreading slowly on the path
of my feet
treaded upon
such green beauty
covering once
this dust, this mud,
this plain expanse
of ugliness
i sing the song
of green green grasess
spreading thinly on
the pavement
grasshoppers
and ants and some worms
yes, the green green grasses
are still their home
patches of earth
from far
you may see
this stitches
of moss
a landscape
of this earth
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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How Green Really is My Valley
She is standing behind the broken bamboo gate,
Incongruously framed, a row tall green flowers,
Perceived with bleak eyes through twisted wire fence.
How green really is my valley.
Breezy lime green of short grass,
Swaying bamboo playing fiddle for me-
Olive green ornament baffle us all,
Sliver streaks of light illuminate-
I lost my imagination in embellishment of past glory.
Slaughter woods speaks to us a lot,
The pain of pure air amidst defilement-
My children may see as green monument.
poem by Sakkthi Subramaniyam
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The Dark Knight Comes Too Pass
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
From a mere boy
Being raised by the wolves
Living in the darkness for just too long
Something just went so wrong
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
Was it a death so desperately
Forever in misery
A loves tragedy
Is always so sad to see
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
The not so dead family
A murder held with in their arms
With no recourse
With no remorse
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
He's the alternate ending
As the light comes to pass
Shadows lurk
They shouldn't be disturbed
Let them rest in peace
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
Festered hate fills his eyes
As he is victimized
By those desecrated his loves ones grave
Becoming of the nightly terrors
The dark knight has come
Fighting for his moment
Fighting for his glory
Fighting for his thrown
Fighting is all he has ever known
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Temporary Poem Of My Time
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
The trees bend in the wind,
And stones fly from all four winds,
Into all four winds. They throw stones,
Throw this land, one at the other,
But the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, want to get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can't get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me
In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites,
Evil men throw and just men throw,
Sinners throw and tempters throw,
Geologists throw and theologists throw,
Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw,
Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
Stones shaped like a screaming mouth
And stones fitting your eyes
Like a pair of glasses,
The past throws stones at the future,
And all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
Even God in the Bible threw stones,
Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
And got stuck in the beastplate of justice,
And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.
Oh, the poem of stone sadness
Oh, the poem thrown on the stones
Oh, the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
A stone that was never thrown
And never built and never overturned
And never uncovered and never discovered
And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
And never turned into a cornerstone?
Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn't want it
The sea says, not in me.
Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.
Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav
poem by Yehuda Amichai
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Moss on a Wall
Dim dreams it hath of singing ways,
Of far-off woodland water-heads,
And shining ends of April days
Amongst the yellow runnel-beds.
Stoop closer to the ruined wall,
Whereon the wilful wilding sleeps,
As if its home were waterfall
By dripping clefts and shadowy steeps.
A little waif, whose beauty takes
A touching tone because it dwells
So far away from mountain lakes,
And lily leaves, and lightening fells.
Deep hidden in delicious floss
It nestles, sister, from the heat -
A gracious growth of tender moss
Whose nights are soft, whose days are sweet.
Swift gleams across its petals run
With winds that hum a pleasant tune,
Serene surprises of the sun,
And whispers from the lips of noon.
The evening-coloured apple-trees
Are faint with July's frosty breath.
But lo! this stranger getteth ease,
And shines amidst the strays of Death.
And at the turning of the year,
When August wanders in the cold,
The raiment of the nursling here
Is rich with green and glad with gold.
Oh, friend of mine, to one whose eyes
Are vexed because of alien things,
For ever in the wall moss lies
The peace of hills and hidden springs.
From faithless lips and fickle lights
The tired pilgrim sets his face,
And thinketh here of sounds and sights
In many a lovely forest-place.
And when by sudden fits and starts
The sunset on the moss doth burn,
He often dreams, and, lo! the marts
And streets are changed to dells of fern.
For, let me say, the wilding placed
By hands unseen amongst these stones,
Restores a Past by Time effaced,
Lost loves and long-forgotten tones!
As sometimes songs and scenes of old
Come faintly unto you and me,
When winds are wailing in the cold,
And rains are sobbing on the sea.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Orange And Green Will Carry The Day
Ireland! rejoice, and England! deplore
Faction and feud are passing away.
'Twas a low voice, but 'tis a loud roar,
'Orange and Green will carry the day.'
Orange! Orange!
Green and Orange!
Pitted together in many a fray
Lions in fight!
And linked in their might,
Orange and Green will carry the day.
Orange! Orange!
Green and Orange!
Wave them together o'er mountain and bay.
Orange and Green!
Our King and our Queen!
'Orange and Green will carry the day!'
Rusty the swords our fathers unsheathed
William and James are turned to clay
Long did we till the wrath they bequeathed,
Red was the crop, and bitter the pay!
Freedom fled us!
Knaves misled us!
Under the feet of the foemen we lay
Riches and strength
We'll win them at length,
For Orange and Green will carry the day!
Landlords fooled us;
England ruled us,
Hounding our passions to make us their prey;
But, in their spite,
The Irish UNITE,
And Orange and Green will carry the day!
Fruitful our soil where honest men starve;
Empty the mart, and shipless the bay;
Out of our want the Oligarchs carve;
Foreigners fatten on our decay!
Disunited,
Therefore blighted,
Ruined and rent by the Englishman's sway;
Party and creed
For once have agreed
Orange and Green will carry the day!
Boyne's old water,
Red with slaughter!
Now is as pure as an infant at play;
So, in our souls,
Its history rolls,
And Orange and Green will carry the day!
English deceit can rule us no more;
Bigots and knaves are scattered like spray
Deep was the oath the Orangeman swore,
'Orange and Green must carry the day!'
Orange! Orange!
Bless the Orange!
Tories and Whigs grew pale with dismay,
When from the North
Burst the cry forth,
'Orange and Green will carry the day!'
No surrender!
No Pretender!
Never to falter and never betray
With an Amen,
We swear it again,
ORANGE AND GREEN SHALL CARRY THE DAY.
poem by Thomas Davis
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Crazy Dream
we tip toe around the edges,
as we orbit and tilt.
we watch the planet wobble,
like a tossed coin thrown into
this well.
its a crazy dream, and its
bruised and bumped.
its a crazy dream, and its
making me ill.
we tip toe around the edges,
only to fall asleep, its the end
we are concernd with, not the
beginning or the middle.
and its a crazy dream, and its
bruised and bumbed, its a crazy
dream, and its making me ill.
poem by David Gerardino
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